Procedures for monster objectives

Inspired by https://mindstorm.blot.im/o-a-r-combat-objectives but different.

Before combat or other conflict can occur, there must be goals. In order for dice rolling to be needed, there must be uncertainty as to whether those goals can be achieved, which is especially likely if those goals are in conflict.

Unlike mindstorm I focus less on the moment of goal achievement than on removal of uncertainty.

Thus: before a potential conflict, both sides secretly write down their objectives and give them to the referee. (If one side is run by the referee they still write down the objectives.) The referee puts the objects in one of three piles: can, cannot, maybe. If nothing is in the maybe pile then players may resolve the scene by reading all objectives and narrating an outcome which satisfies all "can" objectives and no "cannot" objectives, or they may give the objectives to the referee to do. Otherwise, "maybe" objectives must be resolved into "can" or "cannot" objectives through game procedures such as reaction checks or combat. Whenever the referee decides an objective has changed status they will immediately move the objective into the correct pile.

Example encounter:

Dungeon desecrators seek entrance to a royal pyramid via a secret tunnel full of sleeping giant mutant bats. The bats' secret objective is written by the adventure designer: wake up and kill anyone who isn't a bat.

Players write down their objective, and the party druid adds a separate objective, and then the GM looks at all three objectives: 

Bats: wake up and kill anyone who isn't a bat.

Desecrators: sneak through the area without being noticed by any bats

Druid: take control of as many bats as possible to use as minions inside the pyramid.

All three goals conflict to some extent so they all go in the maybe pile. The GM will use whatever procedures are built into the game they are playing (e.g. Stealth rolls in Dungeon Fantasy or D&D 5E; spellcasting or Control Animal rolls for the druid) to resolve uncertainty. If everyone rolls well then the GM will push the bat objective into "cannot" and the other objectives into "can" and then indicate to the players to read them all and narrate an outcome (or push the cards back to him if they prefer to remain 'in character'). If they roll poorly then combat likely begins and the desecrator objective moves to the "cannot" pile.

The written goals serve both as a motivator for the adventure writer or GM to explicitly provide motivations for monsters, and as an audit trail to help players learn more about the game world over the course of play.